


Seeing a White Horse

by misura



Series: Seeing a White Horse [1]
Category: Political RPF - US 21st c.
Genre: Alternate Reality, Background Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-09
Updated: 2009-01-09
Packaged: 2017-11-01 23:51:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/362673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Other people have nightmares - Stephen has white horses. (Rahm doesn't sleep at all, thanks to Certain People calling him in the fucking middle of the night.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seeing a White Horse

**Author's Note:**

> somewhat inspired by the prompt _'Stephen/Anderson - a white horse that keeps following Stephen'_ , which might make even less sense if you've never read Mercedes Lackey's books about Valdemar

Like any politician - or any normal human being, really, although there's been some doubt as to whether or not both terms apply to him, and Rahm doesn't usually use them when thinking of himself - Rahm sleeps with his cellphone lying on his nightstand. 

He wakes when it rings; Amy, being a politician's wife, continues to sleep the sleep of the innocent, although Rahm knows that if he answers it, or walks out of the room to answer it, he'll wake her up.

Then again, he reasons, trying to slip quietly out of bed while still holding the phone in one hand, somebody calling him at two hours past midnight must have a serious reason for doing so. Perhaps Potus has been in a bicycle accident - although as far as Rahm knows, _he_ 's the cyclist in the White House, not Barack. Perhaps they've finally found Blagojevich's body, or something they think is Blagojevich's body, which would be an entirely different kettle of dead fish.

He snaps on a light, looks at the caller-ID and allows himself two seconds (and one more quiet ring) of absolute and utter relief, before he switches to annoyance and answers the call.

"If this were important, _I_ would be calling _you_." Rahm takes half a second to think about that opening, then decides it lacks something. "Or actually, I wouldn't."

There's a very strong temptation to hang up, but if he goes back to bed like he is now (annoyed), Amy is bound to notice and try and make him feel better - and while Rahm has no doubt that she will succeed, Rahm feels there's been far too much of 'Amy-making-him-happy' and far too little of 'his-making-Amy-happy' recently, even if he knows he's the only one keeping score that way.

"Are you having me followed?" Stephen - because, of course it's him - asks.

Rahm breathes in and tells himself that this is good. Or better than it could have been, at least. Stephen with delusions of being important enough for Rahm to have him followed. If he works on it, he can probably get at least a smile when he tells Amy.

"I'm being stalked!" Stephen rambles on. "Stalked!"

"By who?" Rahm wishes he could pour himself a drink or something - he can already tell this is going to be one of those conversations that consist of Stephen doing a lot of talking (and not taking any subtle verbal hints to shut up) and Rahm wishing he were either drunk or unconscious. He'd have hung up after all, except that Stephen would only call him back.

"It's not a who, it's a what!"

Rahm sighs, closes his eyes, waits for it ... imagines Amy giving him a backrub.

"It's an invisible white horse! And it's a democrat," Stephen adds, "so don't act like you don't know anything about it."

"How ... " Rahm begins, then reconsiders.

"Blue eyes!" Stephen says. "And I don't mean 'a vaguely blue-ish kind of grey', I mean _blue_."

"If this invisible white horse had had red eyes, would you be having this conversation with Dick Cheney?" It is, at this point, Rahm knows, quite senseless to get drawn into an argument. He can't help himself though; keeping his mouth closed and letting someone else spout nonsense at him has never been one of his abilities - at least not beyond the point where someone's given him enough rope to be hung (or in Stephen's case, most likely: hung-over) with.

"Of course not. Dick Cheney is a _republican_. I might have called an exorcist, though."

"All right," Rahm says.

"It's not actually _doing_ anything, mind." Stephen sounds pensive. If he's going to say something about how that proves his imaginary equine stalker is a democrat, too, Rahm thinks he might do something rash the next time he sees Nancy - which will most likely be in six hours or so.

"Aside from being invisible, I assume."

"It's been following me everywhere all day."

Rahm sighs. Stephen is - well, yes, he's very stupid in his own special way, but he's not usually this dumb, even when he's drunk.

"What does Jon have to say about it?"

"It's _invisible_ , Rahm," Stephen says. "As in: not visible."

Amy's going to be seriously annoyed when all Rahm's got to tell her when he gets back to bed is that he's got a headache.

"You're no help at all," Stephen continues. "The least you could do is apologize, but no. I don't know why I even called you."

Rahm doesn't know either, but he's suspecting it's some sort of conspiracy, possibly republican in origin, although he's sure there's some things Nancy hasn't quite forgiven him for either - or rather: hasn't gotten even for, because Nancy forgives no more than she forgets, and her memory's every bit as excellent as one would expect from the first female Speaker of the House in history.

"Do you think it will go away if I feed it a sugar-cube?"

What Stephen needs is someone to take his phone away before dragging him home and making him some coffee. Then again, what Rahm needs is for Stephen not to have remembered his phone-number when drunk and hallucinating about invisible white horses with blue eyes. What people need is rarely what they get, the recent elections in 2006 and 2008 notwithstanding.

"I don't have a sugar-cube. Or a carrot. Or an apple. Well, not anymore anyway; I did have one earlier today but I ate it for lunch."

Jon Stewart's sanity is one of the wonders of the modern world, Rahm decides. Stephen's different when he's sober, but not _that_ different.

"Stephen. Go home. Get some sleep. Let _me_ get some sleep."

"I think I have some apples at home."

"Take a cab," Rahm orders.

"I just _miss_ him."

"Take a cab," Rahm repeats, adding: "And don't call me again," for good measure, even though he knows Stephen is unlikely to remember this conversation when he's sobered up enough to recall why it's a bad idea to annoy Rahm.

He breaks the connection before Stephen can reply; if Stephen's going to be an idiot and not take Rahm's advise, he'd just as soon not know about it before he reads the headlines in the newspaper. Contrary to what some people seem to think, Stephen's current state of well-being is not essential to the smooth running of the country. Stephen Colbert is no Anderson Cooper.

Upon consideration, Rahm decides to leave his phone on the table in the living-room. He can pick it up when he leaves for work.

"You know, when they start calling you in the middle of the night, perhaps it's time to start thinking about breaking things off," Amy says.

Rahm wonders how much she's heard and how much she's guessed simply from his expression.

"It was just Stephen. You _like_ him." He might even say she's a bit of a fan, if never to Stephen, or to anyone who might talk to Stephen.

"Stephen's an idiot."

"He's imagining that he's being stalked by a white horse. I told him to go home and feed it an apple."

Amy smiles. "You're an idiot, too."

"I was actually joking about that last part."

"I know."


End file.
